Quite often, I get asked why I don’t use social media, and that’s not quite true; I do. I just don’t use it very much.
I have my reasons for this, and often when I explain it, people get a bit miffed as they seem to think I’m saying or implying that they’re weak of mind or something, and I’m not really. What I am saying in as polite a way as possible is that using these services you’re making a trade that most people don’t understand.
Toxic Pit Of Despair
This is often what I will call social media platforms because, that’s what I see them as being.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I’ve no truck with that whatsoever, but I don’t need someone’s opinion (which can often be somewhere between no interest to offensive) delivered into my line of sight when I don’t want it. And, there’s any number ion them I never wished to see.
I don’t need to know what a friend had for dinner or how their day at the zoo went, sorry, but I’m just not interested. And you are kinda obliged to throw a “like” or whatever at it, try as I might, I can’t be that disingenuous.
If I’m not on there, I don’t have to pretend.
Then there’s the stuff that just riles me up, as well as other people. Some of it is probably deliberate.
You get people on there voicing stuff that just isn’t true, political stuff that’s often wrong and all that kinda thing and it’s just horrid.
And Then, Business
There’s been this whole thing for some years that you need to be on whatever social media platform as a business to essentially get attention, and I suppose that for some businesses, that’s very probably true. Or at least, they get “something” out of it.
Though I suspect in some cases the people handling the socials get something.
Anyway, for sure you can get a reputation and recommendations on these things and I suspect that holds more true for small local businesses than it does for large corporations, but I do question whether or not it’s worth the effort.
In the end, it’s just advertising really.
Some of it is clever and can be effective, but I’d hazard that it's more true when it’s a bit off the wall, like the stuff Ryanair, Wendy’s, and more pull off with gags that get attention and occasionally go viral. They’re light, funny, and very, very hard to pull off.
It’s really hard because not only do you need the sharp wit, but you also need to time it perfectly and have enough of a following for it to catch. All the stars have to align, or it’s just another ad in a sea of ads.
Most of what you get are ads for products, offers of businesses congratulating themselves for something like winning an award, donating to a charity, running some inclusion event or stuff like that. It’s merely basic promotions.
If you ever wondered why there are so many boring business posts on social media, this is why: it’s just another advert with nothing much to say.
But with nothing much to say, I’d wager a lot of people just flick past unless something stands out to them and catches their attention.
The Social Business Of Business
Having been on the internet for a while now, I am all too painfully aware of some of the bad stuff you see going on online. In my view, it doesn’t outweigh the good, but that’s a totally different article.
Way back when it socials just started and by that, I mean pre-Facebook in the days of MySpace, Friendster and so on (if you remember them, you’re old now) nobody really cared all that much. These platforms never really “caught” like Facebook did. The only one that survived from that era and is still about is LinkedIn, the rest are consigned to history.
But, big bucks went into Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and investors, well, they want a return.
These services couldn’t really charge for memberships as, if they did it’s highly likely nobody would use them so they had to find alternatives to that.
The number one alternative was of course advertising.
They purported to have millions of users with eyeballs planted on their platforms, huge numbers that traditional media like TV could only dream of and of course, they would sell you some advertising space.
Because if the users weren’t paying but getting a service, the price was that you surrender your data and your eyes to advertising.
It was inevitable, therefore, that an industry, just like SEO, would pop up and proclaim that they’d get you noticed on these platforms.
And the people footing the bill were the users.
Think about it. Yes, companies shifted or added to their ad spend to pump up ads on social media, but that much comes from… yup, punters.
One of the crazy things about all these “free” services is, they’re not free. Nothing is free.
And these media behemoths, paid for by investors and businesses hoping to get some kind of a return on the money they pumped into them.
Flip Side To Toxicity
I know I said that social media is toxic and, I’ll stand by that, I’d even go so far as to say they cause more harm than good at times but there is another side to them.
One of the long-term survivors is LinkedIn, and I use it a bit, although I don't post often and when I do it’s to what I consider to be an article worthy of reading with something to say (like this) or, something worth getting out there but it’s a depressing thing.
Look at what’s on there. There is some good quality stuff worth your time but the vast bulk of it is corporate drivel or people patting themselves on the back, individuals and companies.
It’s so sickly, there should be a high sugar warning!
I don’t care that it’s someone I worked with for ten minutes’ birthday, and I am sure as shoot ain’t gonna be writing them on that annual event. I struggle to get my kids a birthday card much less someone I barely know.
But all under the jackboot of correctness in the “professional space”. Which is fine, no problem with that, just don’t pretend it’s something else.
Toxic Coda
When it comes to customer service, my field, social media, is at best a double-edged sword.
It’s great when things are going well, great comments from happy people that you’ve helped that really help with your reputation.
But, when it goes sideways… and it will, at some point.
You have two options, neither is good. You can have the debate in public for all to see, and even if you are right, will people read the whole story or, as they want to do, pick out what they want? Or, you take it private and then people may just think you’re covering up the mess.
Not good.
The best course, if indeed there is a best course on social media for that sort of thing, is liable to be to ask the customer to contact by another means with an issue but, even that’s not a great look.
I don’t know how you can win here. Other than to be snarky and amusing, like some I mentioned, and hope most people see it in the light you cast it in. Again, though, that’s not easy, and I suspect not possible inside some of the “constraints” some companies will place on social posts.
It’s also why a lot of businesses, public institutions and more ban staff from posting on social media if they reveal who they work for as their “stuff” might have blowback. Then you’ve hacked off staff as well.
Engagement
All this stuff gets to you that. It’s all about engagement on these platforms and, as I said previously, that’s really hard to do.
If you’re some celebrity I’m not going to say it’s easy as I’ve no idea not being one, but I’d wager it’s a lot easier to get people to engage with whatever you post up. Be that, what you had for lunch or your latest professional endeavour but, for us mere mortals, not so much.
For a business, that’s incredibly hard.
But these platforms need businesses to engage as they need the cash from what they charge them to try to get engagement from users. I do think that a lot of businesses either don’t understand this or don’t know it.
Whether it’s worth the effort or not is open to debate, but I would suggest that if you are having to pay for social media stuff to be done, have a close look at it and see if it’s worth the cost, as for a number, I would think it probably isn’t.